I didn’t know the story of Thomas Eakins’s portrait of Dr. Samuel D. Gross, known as The Clinic of Dr. Gross: that it was agreed that it should be sold by Jefferson Medical College on 11 November 2006 with a proviso which allowed the city of Philadelphia to make a pre-emptive bid for a matching price of $68 million if it could raise the necessary funds by December 26th. This led to a huge and successful fund-raising campaign by the Pennsylvania Academy and the Philadelphia Museum of Art which led to this great painting, turned down for display in the 1876 Centennial, to remain in Philadelphia, and to be seen currently in the Pennsylvania Academy:-
| Charles | Saumarez | Smith | 
Worth mentioning that it’s by Thomas Eakins, a great painter perhaps not so familiar to your European readers.
Quite right. I’ve made the correction. Sorry not to be seeing you. Charles
truly a great painter and a marvellous exhibiton of his portraits at London’s NPG some time ago. also an extraordinary photographer and teacher. When 19th century American painting was little regarded, it was little shown in Europe, now that so much is justly admired etc it is too expensive, but a Thomas Cole show is coming up at the NG< and Tate did have American Sublime. But oh Eakins one has to go to Philadelphia
Yes, the Eakins exhibition at the NPG was done by John Hayes just before he retired in autumn 1993, a pioneering thing for him to have done. Charles